Thomas Rainer is a landscape architect, teacher, and author. He is a passionate advocate for an ecologically expressive design aesthetic that does not imitate nature, but interprets it. He has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden. He works in Washington, D.C. as a Principal for the landscape architectural firm Rhodeside & Harwell and blogs at the popular site Grounded Design. His first book, Planting in a Post-Wild World, co-authored with Claudia West, was just released by Timber Press this year and awarded one of American Horticultural Society’s top books of the year.
Creating and Managing a Plant Community: Creative Approaches to Site Preparation, Installation, and Maintenance. The tried and true axioms that guide preparation, installation, and management arise from a belief that we should be able to place any kind of plant anywhere. Unique characteristics of soil like high pH or infertility are eradicated in favor of creating a generic, potting-soil-like medium. Many of these widely accepted and blindly applied techniques actually undermine plant establishment and the long-term health of a planting. Join landscape architect Thomas Rainer to learn how to work with a site rather than fighting it. This talk explores ways to use a plant’s natural growing cycles to speed up establishment, minimize plant loss, and reduce unnecessary maintenance.
